Freshers, don’t go visit other unis in Michaelmas

MAX BRAY tells you why leaving the safety of Oxford during your first term is a terrible idea

| UPDATED

Visiting your school friends in first term is a recipe for disaster.

You’re a month into your first year and you just about feel like you’ve made some not completely shit friends, but you still hark back to the safety of those you knew before because in the end its easier to stick with what you’re familiar with.

The memories of interrailing are still fresh, your Bestival wristband still proudly adorns your wrist, and you haven’t yet reached the stage of only talking to your home friends in the holidays – the Whatsapp groups are holding up, for now.

One of them suggests that you come visit, and given your relative insecurity with your new pals you welcome the idea of a few days in an unknown city as giving you a little home away from home – a chance to shoot the shit with someone you’ve known for ten years, and to shark on the fit friends you’ve seen in all their Freshers’ Week photos.

“None of us know each other”

You book the bus for midway through Michaelmas, plan your work week accordingly and pack your snazziest garms to wow the cultured chicas. You eagerly head up to whichever Russell Group uni they’ve decided to settle at, leaving the whispering spires behind you in a glaze of essay stress and post Bridge hangover.

All is going swimmingly, and then you arrive. Your bus gets in early evening, meaning you have minimal time to drop your stuff, douse yourself in aftershave, and wolf down a quick bowl of pasta before heading to whatever predrinks your friend has deemed least terrifying.

To your surprise, they are just as uncomfortable with their new contemporaries as you are, and the social dynamics of whatever flat/corridor/house they’re in haven’t yet been completely ironed out.

so painfully alone

There’s still a few blokes vying for top dog position – from the guy who spends too much time in the gym acting like some roided up alpha douchebag to the hyper trendy gap year fuckhead spouting life lessons at the less mature but more receptive of his neighbours. Equally, everyone else is still being hyper friendly to each other because no one is comfortable enough to just be rude yet.

The introductions flow faster than the Tesco Imperial© vodka, and by 10.30 you have so many pretend friends you could stage a convincing funeral. The problem is, everyone you’ve spoken to has no idea who you’ve come up to see, and if they do, they probably don’t know who they are.

When you head out, you obviously lose your point of contact immediately resulting in four hours of wandering around alone in a club that’s 250 times the size of Cellar hoping you bump into someone you met in a haze of greetings and drinking games two hours earlier.

When you finally do, their glazed stares look right through you, leaving you to chat awkwardly  to someone in the smoking area until you are either saved by your host or forced to return to the confines of their horrible single bed in their horrible accommodation block in the most horrible part of town – undoubtedly alone.

Lost, forever

The next day involves an incredibly awkward brunch where you try to avoid eye contact with the girl you told “looked just like one of the strippers in Amsterdam” as an attempted compliment, and your friend tries to look like they aren’t with you because you appear sad and lonely and 100% made a fool out of yourself the night before.

After a seemingly endless morning, you say some forced goodbyes, now doubting whether you were ever actually friends with the person you had been so excited to see 24 hours before. What ensues is a lonely bus back across the country, saved only by the welcoming glow of early evening Oxford and the enticing arms of Express Pizza to save what has been a colossal waste of money from feeling like total defeat.

By the beginning of Hilary however this has all been resolved.

Your friends actually have other friends, so the people you meet may endeavour to remember your name, and the introductions become genuinely friendly instead of social power brokering or false niceness brought on by insecurity. Odds are you will probably bump into some of the people you meet again roaming the halls of Fabric over the holidays, and actually say hello to them. Moreover, later on it’s more likely a group of you will visit instead of just one, seriously reducing the likelihood of being stuck in a club alone – one of the scariest things on the planet.

But in Michaelmas it’s a whole different kettle of fish, so Freshers, don’t visit your friends too early on, it’s just fucking weird.

being alone in a club, like a great ball-pit of despair

None of this article was born out of any sort of bitterness or awkward trips to other universities too early in the year.